Looking for ways to get in closer contact with your clients, staff, patients or customers? Many businesses are turning to Short Message Service (SMS) messages to send reminders and updates. More than 18 billion mobile devices may be in use worldwide by 2025, including cell phones and tablets, making SMS marketing a highly relevant solution for reaching people with mobile devices.
Knowing where SMS marketing is headed can give your company greater insight into the role it could play in marketing in the coming years. Discover the future of SMS marketing and why SMS marketing could be an excellent addition to your company’s marketing toolbelt.
The Rise of SMS Marketing
SMS marketing has been a game-changer in the marketing world, connecting businesses with their customers, office or patients more personally than other channels. The tool is effective for communicating company news, sharing updates and marketing new products to existing customers.
SMS marketing had a slow start. Text messaging began in 1992 in the United Kingdom but didn’t gain a significant foothold until 1998, when the service became available from all of Britain’s major cell phone networks. Australia quickly became a leader in the technology, while SMS emerged later in the United States and other parts of the world. The rise of cell phone usage has been a significant stimulant. Over 1.43 billion smartphones were sold worldwide in 2021. And the market still has room for additional growth.
This rise in cell phone use and reliance is the catalyst for exponential SMS use and marketing opportunities. The potential for SMS marketing is enormous, with over 2 trillion SMS messages sent in the United States alone in 2021. Companies can use SMS messages to grow their loyalty programs, promote sales, target customer segments and connect with customers.
How Is SMS Marketing Changing?
SMS marketing and strategies for its use have matured significantly over the last couple of years. A significant motivation for change is the rise of chat apps that rely on an internet connection. Chat apps may be responsible for a dip in SMS messages starting in 2012, but make no mistake—SMS marketing isn’t going away any time soon. Businesses are developing new SMS marketing solutions features to continue to fuel growth into the future.
Here are some of the ways SMS marketing is changing for the better:
Increase and Improvement in Customization
SMS marketing has opened new opportunities for customizing messages to customers or patients, which can translate to more personal interactions, higher engagement and a better click-through rate (CTR). Personalization is a valuable tool because customers are more likely to open personalized messages that include their name or other information relevant to them, such as an order number or item of interest.
Another perk of personalization—networks are less likely to block customized messages. Sending the same message to multiple recipients could motivate the network AI to block you. Adding personalization gives you a higher probability of getting your message through to the intended recipient. Following tips for sending personalized SMS messages can help your company connect better with a target segment of customers and show your knowledge of their individual needs.
Improved Customer Support
SMS marketing can be an effective way to provide customer support, and companies are developing better strategies for making their customers feel valued through these messages. With SMS messages, your company can share information like:
- Announcements
- Store hour updates
- Shipping notifications
- Advertising promotions
- Appointment reminders
- Medication refill reminders
Deeper SMS Integrations
Today, SMS messaging is one tool in an omnichannel marketing arsenal that companies use to engage with current customers. Businesses can integrate SMS with social media and email to reach clients and patients through even more avenues. By integrating with these platforms or others like customer relationship management (CRM) software, your company can create a comprehensive marketing strategy that reaches its customers wherever they are.
Why SMS Marketing?
Your business or organization can gain several benefits by engaging in mobile marketing through SMS. Consider a few of the ways SMS marketing can help your company engage with and retain its customers:
1. Reduced Cost
SMS marketing, along with several other types of digital marketing, is often more cost effective than traditional marketing outlets. There’s no need to break the bank by putting out television or radio ads, printing flyers and paying postage. Instead, your company can spend significantly less to send targeted SMS messages to its customers. SMS marketing also saves you the cost and frustration of playing phone tag with customers when you need to send reminders.
2. Better Allocation of Time
Calling individual customers or team members to remind them of appointments or share updates is time-consuming. It’s even more inefficient when you want to send updates to a large batch of customers. SMS messaging is the perfect solution.
With SMS marketing, you can send texts to customers, departments or patients worry-free. For example, your company can compose and schedule bulk SMS messages to send to hundreds of customers automatically at a set time, even if your computer is off. SMS marketing allows your company to use its time more efficiently.
3. More Convenient
SMS messaging offers the benefit of sending texts directly to a customer’s phone or other mobile device. Since many people are never more than an arm’s length away from their phones, SMS messaging gets you closer to your customers than ever before without working as hard. With two-way messaging, SMS marketing also makes it convenient for customers to respond to your messages.
4. Wider Customer Reach
Anyone with a cell phone or smartphone is a candidate for SMS marketing. With 97% of American adults owning a cell phone, the marketing potential is massive. Unlike some types of messaging, SMS marketing can reach people without a smartphone.
Users who opt-in to SMS messages may be even more willing to open and engage with them. Customers want the ability to choose how they receive business communications. By offering SMS messages as one form of marketing for customers or patients to opt into, businesses can provide communication through the customer’s preferred method.
5. Greater Customer Engagement
SMS messages have an impulsive nature to them. They pop up instantly on a recipient’s phone and can’t get automatically sent into an email folder, making it more likely that customers will open and read text messages than emails. Research firm Gartner predicts that 80% of customer service organizations will switch to text messaging by 2025 to improve the customer experience.
Does SMS Marketing Work?
If done right, SMS messaging can work well. Companies worldwide use SMS marketing to reach customers, manage team members, and communicate with patients. SMS marketing is a powerful tool across multiple industries, from education and healthcare to hospitality and entertainment.
Leverage SMS Messaging With Red Oxygen
SMS messaging is an effective, proven strategy for mass marketing. It’s attention-grabbing, convenient and cost-effective, making it an essential tool for reaching your company’s audience more quickly.
Support your business’s marketing goals with an SMS messaging solution from Red Oxygen. With more than 20 years in the business SMS industry, Red Oxygen has the expertise to meet your business needs. With our out-of-the-box solutions, companies can set up SMS messaging from an email and message individuals or entire distribution lists. Recipients get messages directly on their mobile devices, and replies go to the sender’s inbox.
Our comprehensive solution works with your existing infrastructure, including your email, CRM and spreadsheets. To learn more about our SMS messaging solutions, https://staging.redoxygen.com/schedule-a-demo/.
